caroline wetterling: gro.

Ok, so let me try and explain the many reasons why I love this. Firstly, at the risk of understatement, plants are awesome. I read once that you should try and have a living thing in every room of your house, and plants give you some ecological energy and fresh O2 to burn.

Secondly, I love forward-thinking design that merges the organic with the modern; finding new ways to harness the beauty of botanical growth with the tech-geeky joy of owning something that looks like you could take it on a space ship. Thirdly – I’m into compartmentalized packaging. One of my guilty pleasures is airplane food. I have an almost Pavlovian response to the sound of that jangly trolley being wheeled down the aisle, and then those trays with the little boxes, neatly laid out for maximum efficiency and somehow and leaving you wanting more.

So, when Swedish designer Caroline Wetterling created Gro – a living, single-serving plant whose growth is displayed inside a sleek, futuristic glass egg – it’s three times the joy for me. Designed while she was still a student at Beckman’s College of Design, she said, “The greenhouse can host the three initial stages of a seed’s development, from seed to shoot to the development of true leaves. Plants like Forgetmenot, four-leaved clover and wild strawberries have enough space to flourish inside the capsule. In the bottom of the capsule, a set of bars is placed to keep the right level of moisture in the soil. The spout acts as a ventilation hole – it allows for oxygen to come in, condensation to come out, and keeps the proper temperature inside the capsule.”